


Never Trust the Stars

by araydre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hostage Situations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-09 02:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17398571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araydre/pseuds/araydre
Summary: When Jack goes missing after a mission Brock follows.





	Never Trust the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linguamortua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/gifts).



Leaving the house last, Brock surveyed his team. The mission had not gone as planned, the targets had escaped, but his men were all alive and well. No. That was not right, Jack was missing, the constant presence at his side was gone.

“Did anyone see Rollins leave?” he asked and no one answered him. “Damn! I’m going back for him!” 

“Sir, we have been ordered to retreat,” one of them spoke up. 

“I’m taking a sick day,” growled Brock. “Retreat as ordered, but leave the surveillance equipment here.” He would deal with the fallout once he had found Jack one way or the other. There were some mutters of staying and helping, but he squashed them with a glare.

He settled himself in the dirty, nondescript van and keyed in the code for Jack’s locator. It was still functional, showing elevated vitals. 

“Careless fuckers,” he snorted and moved to the driver’s seat.

He surveilled the house with an infrared scanner and it showed only one heat source. Strange, but who was he to question his luck. He snorted again. Luck indeed, something was not right here.

Brock entered the house carefully, checking for traps and hidden surprises. There were none, it was like a red carpet had been rolled out to him to come and collect Jack.

He did indeed find Jack, in a room on the ground floor, bound to a chair and beaten bloody. He sat still and stared at him with an unreadable expression in his pale eyes. Jack seemed to shake himself and then spat out some blood. 

“You came for me.” 

“Of course I came for you, you dumbass, now come on.” Brock walked around him to cut the zip ties that had rubbed Jack’s wrists bloody, then did the same for his ankles, while Jack rubbed some circulation back into his hands. He wanted to leave this place as soon as possible, there was something very wrong with this picture.

He helped Jack limp to the van, and soon the house disappeared from their rearview mirrors.

“What did they want?” Brock asked.

“Information,” was Jack’s concise answer.

“Which you didn’t give them,” he continued.  
“Hmm,” Jack seemed to agree.

“Why did they leave?” this was starting to sound like an interrogation to Brock’s own ears.

“Don’t know,” shrugged Jack, but Brock knew all his tells. Something was still off. 

They found a motel. In the back of the van Brock took off most of his gear to be left in cargo pants and a tee shirt, still cutting a striking figure, but less conspicuous than before. He got them a room and hauled Jack inside, where he insisted on taking a shower and refused medical attention. Jack limped into the bathroom and closed the door firmly. 

***

Brock woke with a start when he felt the handcuffs close about his right wrist. Jack was looming above him in the cheap motel room, lit only by the street lights outside.

“What the fuck are you doing!” Brock exclaimed.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Jack rumbled softly and leaned close. 

Brock’s left arm was still free, he could punch him if he willed, but something held him back. Jack hovered a moment, their faces an inch apart, almost as if he was going to kiss him, but then retreated.

“Don’t follow me,” he threw over his shoulder and was gone, the door thumping hollowly. 

Brock lay there a moment dumbfounded, then considered his situation. 

The cheap motel bed frame broke easily. He rummaged around his things for a key and undid the handcuffs still attached to his wrist. The feeling of wrongness condensed into one of anger. What the hell was Jack up to, the ungrateful bastard! Brock dressed and armed himself. The van was gone, so he jacked a car. 

Where could Jack have gone, he had no idea, so the starting point was going to be the house he found him at, to look for clues. Like a crime drama, which this was not. He arrived at the house and there were lights inside. That was not optimal, but Brock would make do. He parked a block away and approached the door carefully, it was not locked, which was carelessness at its highest. 

Entering the house, he kept to the shadows. There was a murmur of voices, but he could not make out the words. Silently he made his way to the room with the people and listened at the door. To his surprise one of the voices belonged to Jack. There could not have been more than two other people in there, so he kicked in the door and took aim.

All three men inside had turned to him and frozen in the moment. Jack was not armed, which gave Brock a flash of surprise, but he ignored it in favour of focusing on the two other men with guns, which they were not quick enough to draw. 

Next he pointed his at Jack.

“What the fuck, Rollins,” he grated out, “what are you doing here?”

Jack silently opened his hand and there sat a flashdrive. Brock felt a momentary desire to shoot him then and there and be done with this, but again he hesitated.

“They have my niece,” Jack declared as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. 

“And you didn’t think to come to me with this. Damn you. Where is she?” Brock gesticulated with his gun.

“You killed the people who knew,” Jack was visibly shrinking in on himself.

“Okay, we can still salvage this,” Brock sighed. “Tell me all you know.”

Jack gave as detailed a report as he could manage with the information available and Brock made calls. Favours he had been saving for a rainy day went up in smoke because his second in command was stupid about family matters, as it had turned out. Jack stood by like a beaten dog and said not a word. 

Once done setting a rescue in motion, Brock turned to Jack and raised his hand in a vague gesture, first a fist then palm flat out. He was confusing himself, damn him and everyone else. In the end he settled to pushing the taller man flat against the wall and growling at him. 

“You are going to owe me so much for this shit. Never imagine you can freeze me out like that again,” he punctuated each sentence with a harder shove. “Now let’s go and get your niece.”


End file.
